Health and Reviews.

Deadly danger of bad sleep

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis (USA) have shown that inadequate sleep contributes to the development of Alzheymr’s disease – a severe form of dementia leading to death due to loss of movement and exhaustion. This is reported in a press release on MedicalXpress.

The researchers found that sleep deprivation in rodents and humans increases the amount of tau protein in the central nervous system. In Alzheimer’s disease, tau protein molecules containing excessive amounts of phosphoric acid residues form clusters — neurofibrillary tangles — and cease to function as stabilizing intracellular structures called “microtubules”.

It turned out that the amount of tau protein increases in the cerebrospinal fluid of rodents at night, when animals are awake. Breaking day rest also provoked a twofold increase in protein content during daylight hours. An analysis of liquor taken from eight people after a normal sleep and sleepless night showed that the tau protein in the latter case increased its amount by 50 percent.

Scientists have concluded that Tau-protein accumulates in the brain during the entire wakefulness period, and sleep allows you to get rid of an excessive amount of potentially pathogenic compounds. Sleep deprivation increases the likelihood that the tau protein will start to form tangles.